The prompt from Mary G’s Substack: Fathers.
I begged her indulgence and let my father write the entry himself, for a 60 year old letter to me.
Context: It is July 1962. My French mother has taken her five children to France to spend the summer at a large rented house outside of Lyon, so she can spend time with her sister (3 kids) and recently widowed sister-in-law (5 kids). Also visiting would be her father, Marcel Chabal, after whom I was named. He owned a shirt-store in Avignon, where my mother was born and raised, quite close to the Pope’s Palace.
My father, holding down the fort as a NY paper company executive, wrote to his children individually all summer, always finding the right tone for each age. I was a precocious, highly verbal 3 ½ year old, three months away from turning four, but I’m sure my mother had to read the letter to me.]
Dear M-A-R-K:
What is Grandpère’s name? What is your middle name? Why did we name you Mark Chabal Olmsted?
Mon beau garçon, I miss you very much. Will you please write to me? Perhaps you can draw a picture and maybe your big brother Even-Stephen will write down your words. I hope you are making sure that Erica doesn’t sleep on her nose or ears or back or stomach or fingers or head, because she should sleep in her bed.
I hope Grandpère will take some time off and show you Le Palais des Papes, because you are really a son of Avignon. Look about you because you are in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
My son, give Mama many many kisses for me because you know our family lives on kisses. Give Fafan and Luke a pompom, because they giggled last night before they went to sleep, but give Shashashouille a kiss for me and do what you think is best for Erica.
I love you Marky, my boy, I know you are good just the best boy in the whole wide world.
Papapouille, Papa
[Note: In 1967, my grandfather moved from the apartment above the shirt store to a modern apartment blocks away. His neighbor turned out to be the curator of the Pope’s Palace, and in 1969 we got a tour of private chambers never seen by the public.]
